A Cloud of Perfume
by crimsonduo
Summary: "But Bassy! I've come by for a reason," she sits on the edge of the counter and clasps her hands under her chin, "I need you to help me learn my lines!" Sebastian turns around so quickly he actually does knock the teacups off the counter, and almost doesn't catch them before they hit the ground. "I beg your pardon?"


Sebastian's morning was running perfectly on schedule. He had the tea set layed out, and had just put the kettle on the stove when he was interrupted by the sudden sound of the door knocker. It's harsh '_clack_' disrupted his sense of perfection, and he frowned as he pulled on his gloves and walked briskly down the hallway.

'_Clack_!'

The knocking grew louder and more insistent with every second. Irritation began to creep up on him, and he mentally chastised whoever was creating such a racket at this hour. He stopped in front of the door and opened it with a polite smile, turning to face the person in front of him.

"Bassy!"

His polite smile disappeared, and he glared at the woman in front of him.

"What on earth are you doing here Grell?"

"Well aren't you going to let me in? It's not very polite to let a lady stand out in the cold you know!" Grell clasped her hands in front of her and half-turned away from him, probably intending to look both pretty and offended, but mainly just looking ridiculous.

"Well it's not very polite to turn up uninvited on nobility's property either," he began to close the door, "honestly, you could have woken up the Earl. Goodbye Grell."

The door failed at closing successfully due to a high-heel clad foot stopping it at the last second. Sebastian glares harder at her, and Grell scowls at him. She looks genuinely frustrated, which catches his attention. Usually she would accept being turned away with a melodramatic speech that was only half-serious and be on her way. Today though, she looks as if she actually came for a reason other than avoiding doing her job.

He sighs, and opens the door, stepping aside to let her enter.

"Oh Sebastian," she pretends to swoon, before twirling around and nearly hitting the wall with her death scythe, "how charming of you!"

"What do you want Grell? I haven't got all day. Unlike you I actually do my job, so I have got business to attend to."

As if cued by Sebastian's words, the kettle begins to whistle, and Sebastian reluctantly gestures for Grell to follow him as he hurries into the kitchen.

He frowns as he removes the kettle from the stove, ignoring Grell's loud reciting of 'Romeo and Juliet' behind him. He should be waking the young master and giving him tea right now, and he can't very well leave Grell unattended in the manor. Accepting the fact that the whole day's schedule has been thrown off, he turns his full attention to Grell, who is _very_animatedly re-enacting both Romeo _and_ Juliet's parts of the balcony scene.

"Grell. Are you here simply to ruin my schedule, or are you here on business?"

She stops immediately, and turns to face him, this time looking excited.

"Well Bassy, you see I have simply wonderful news! You know the theatre near the Scotland Yard?"

"Yes, and don't call me 'Bassy', it's cringeworthy. 'Sebastian' will suffice thank you."

She waves her hand, dismissing his comment on her choice of nickname without a second thought.

"I've been given a role in a play! 'Romeo and Juliet', a story laced with love and death!" She twirls excitedly, her chainsaw swinging dangerously close to the specially made china teacups.

"Amazing." Sebastian's voice is uninterested as he swiftly moves the teacups out of the way.

"No need to sound so bored about it! Aren't you excited? I'm going to be a star!" She poses dramatically as if being photographed.

"Grell I don't have time for this. Please see yourself out," he puts the kettle back on the stove to reheat the water.

"But Bassy! I've come by for a reason," she sits on the edge of the counter and clasps her hands under her chin, "I need you to help me learn my lines!"

Sebastian turns around so quickly he actually does knock the teacups off the counter, and almost doesn't catch them before they hit the ground.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well I can't very well ask William to help me with my lines, he's so boring. Also I haven't submitted any paperwork for three weeks." She sounds almost proud of this, and Sebastian smirks a little when he imagines how inconvenienced William must be because of this.

"Ask Ronald then."

"Ronald doesn't have the sort of theatre expertise you do," she pouts, "and he's hardly as dreamy."

The kettle begins to whistle again, and Sebastian looks at Grell sitting on the kitchen counter, pouting and being an utter nuisance. Later, he'll blame the complete absurdity of the situation for what he says next:

"I'm busy now, but come by later. After I'm done my work for the day."

Grell practically explodes with joy, and after babbling about how wonderful Sebastian is, she throws him one last beaming smile and finally leaves in a red whirlwind of excitement.

Sebastian is left standing in the kitchen alone with the still screeching kettle and a cloud of perfume.

Sebastian spends the rest of the day in a weird state of slight anticipation and extreme annoyance. Ciel was - as expected - incredibly irritated that his day was off to a late start, and took it upon himself to be even more demanding than usual. The servants seemed more inept than they ordinarily were, and he ended up doing three times the amount of work he should have.

By the time Ciel was in bed and everything was straightened up and ready for the next morning, Sebastian was nursing a slight headache and had completely forgotten about his arrangement with Grell. So when he heard the sound of the door knocker, followed by the sound of someone letting themselves in, he groaned internally and rubbed at his temples. Stilettos clicked on the floor of the manor, and Sebastian braced himself for the over-enthusiastic personality of the reaper.

"Sebastian?" Grell's voice was uncharacteristically quiet, and he noted the use of his full name.

He walked out of the study and into the hallway to meet Grell, but was temporarily thrown off by her appearance. She wasn't wearing her work clothes, and instead had on a flattering red dress and lots of jewelry. Her perfume was slightly overpowering, but he found he didn't mind as much as he should.

Walking over to Grell, he gestured that she be quiet, as Ciel was sleeping. She nodded, and they both went back into the study. The second the door closed however, Grell began to chatter about her day and how William was on her case again because she'd broken more rules.

"Grell."

She looked up at him and suddenly seemed to remember the reason she was here.

"Oh yes. Well I've brought the script. I've only got one, but it doesn't matter because I already know it all by heart so you can have this copy," she waves a pile of papers at him, and he takes them, slightly bemused.

"If you already know the entire script by heart, why do you need my help?"

"Just because I know it doesn't mean I'm performing it well! I take pride in acting Bassy, I am an actress after all," she clutches her heart and gives him an offended look.

"Alright. Very well," he begins to leaf through the script, "which character do you play?"

"I'm a member of the chorus. I attend the Capulet ball!"

Sebastian stares at her and takes in her smile and the excited tone of her voice. He has to ask.

"Grell...this is a rather, um...insensitive question, but do you," he pauses, looking at her again, "do you actually have any lines in this play?"

"Nope!" Grell beams at him.

He rubs his temples, his headache coming back.

They spend the evening rehearsing the play anyway, and Grell even makes Sebastian want to laugh by doing an impression of William. Grell pouts when he refuses to participate in the kissing scene - '_I would absolutely_never_kiss you'_-and acts wounded when Sebastian tells her that she'd make an awful Juliet, and no, he will absolutely not go to Ronald's Halloween party with her dressed as Romeo. _Especially_ not if she's dressed as Juliet.

Sebastian makes a show of being relieved when she yawns and says she has to go since its getting late, but he still walks her to the door.

And if he waits at the open door watching her leave, it's because he's making sure she actually leaves, and definitely not because he's wishing she'd stayed a bit longer.

The following week, during a particularly bloody encounter with some drug dealers, Grell turns up to reap, and instead of following Ciel back to the carriage, Sebastian hangs back a few minutes. When Grell sees him, she turns to him and smiles, shouting his name and waving her death scythe around wildly as she waves. He tells himself the weird feeling in his chest is annoyance, and snaps at her to stop being reckless with her death scythe.

Ciel yells for Sebastian to hurry up and stop associating with 'that redheaded riff-raff' and he smirks at Grell before leaving, wishing he'd turned away sooner so he hadn't seen the slight hurt in her eyes.

Grell phones the week after that, asking if she can come over to rehearse with him again. Sebastian tells her that he doesn't have time and that she should find someone else to rehearse with because frankly, he's too busy for this.

He phones her two days later and tells her that they can rehearse some lines on the phone if she wants. They end up making fun of their bosses instead, and when the next phone bill comes in, Sebastian pays it from his own salary rather than giving it to Ciel.

He has no further contact with Grell for a few weeks until one day along with the usual letters for Ciel, there's an invitation to a production of 'Romeo and Juliet'.

Sebastian glares at it and pretends not to read it before throwing it into the fire and continuing his day as planned. He does send a copy of 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare' bound in beautiful red leather to the Reaper Dispatch though. He puts a tag on in that says 'Sutcliff' but doesn't write that it's from him.

She'll know who it's from. This thought makes him both uneasy and comforted.

"What on earth are you wearing?"

Sebastian stops pouring tea and looks up at Ciel, frowning as he adjusts his top hat.

"Why does it look bad? Is the rose in the buttonhole too much?" Sebastian looks down at himself.

"Why are you all dressed up? Are you going somewhere?"

"Just the theatre my lord," he says, bowing deeply.

Ciel scoffs, and Sebastian finishes pouring the tea and then hands Ciel a slice of cake.

"By the way, you look completely ridiculous," Ciel calls after him as he exits, which Sebastian takes as confirmation that he looks amazing.

He arrives at the theatre way too early, his reasoning for this being that if he's wasting the time to watch this play, he doesn't want to have a bad seat. Even though the seating is assigned. But what if he was there only a couple minutes too late and they gave his seat to someone else?

The young man at the desk informs him that the show doesn't start for another two hours, and that the cast isn't even in the dressing rooms yet.

Sebastian paces outside for fifteen minutes before going to the jewelers shop just down the road. He looks through all the jewelry several times, before the grumpy elderly woman behind the counter gets suspicious and tells him to either buy something or get out. He leaves, but comes back ten minutes later and buys a pair of ruby earrings.

"They aren't for my girlfriend," he tells the woman behind the counter, "I mean, they aren't for me either. I don't wear earrings...the Earl I work for does though."

The woman grunts, clearly uninterested in what he has to say.

"They're a congratulatory gift. For a friend. Who's in a play - Romeo and Juliet."

The woman grunts again, and hands him the earrings after counting the money he gave her twice.

Back out on the street with a pair of earrings in his pocket, he goes back to the theatre, then doubles back and buys a bouquet of roses from a florist on the street corner.

Sebastian then goes into the theatre, and persuades the young man behind the desk to keep the flowers safe for him during the show.

Sebastian reads all the posters on the walls a couple times before other guests start to arrive. Then he begins to wonder if he's a little overdressed. He decides being overdressed is better than being underdressed, and changes his gloves, because his palms are getting a little sweaty.

When everyone is seated in the theatre, Sebastian finds himself sitting next to an elderly gentleman. He smiles knowingly and chuckles at Sebastian when he tells him about how his friend is in this play - redhead, slasher smile, you can't miss her.

The first half of the play goes well, and Grell looks beautiful in her emerald green gown. Her hair is in an up-do, and Sebastian makes a mental note to tell her to wear her hair like that more often.

At intermission, Sebastian rants to the snack-vendor about how the pretty redhead in the emerald green gown is his friend. It's during this conversation that Sebastian realizes that Grell knows the entire play off by heart, and despite her seemingly ditzy personality, he knows that she's actually quite capable of more than she usually lets on. He stops talking to the snack-vendor (who seems very relieved) and wonders why Grell is only playing a minor part instead of a lead.

Sebastian spends the second half of the performance mentally pointing out all of the flaws in the lead actors.

After the show, the audience members stick around for a while, drinking overpriced sherry and talking about the performance. Sebastian hangs around for fifteen minutes, before collecting the flowers from the desk and slipping away to find the dressing rooms.

Grell is just leaving the dressing room when he comes down the hall, and when she sees him her face lights up in the cutest smile Sebastian's ever seen from someone with razor-sharp pointed teeth.

"You actually came! I didn't think you'd actually come to see it," she blushes, "what did you think?"

Sebastian looks at Grell, her hair still pinned up, her green eyes hopeful behind her glasses and his heart feels ready to burst.

He holds out the flowers for her to take, and frowns as he looks away from her.

"It was a rather mediocre show. The actress playing Juliet was rather bland."

But Grell isn't listening because she's clasping the flowers to her chest, gazing up at Sebastian with the widest grin he's ever seen, and he's just standing there stiffly, trying to ignore her excited voice as she begins to recite some awful love poem about roses.

"Don't get too excited. It's just to say congratulations for the play," he says, but even he's not buying it.

He remembers the earrings, and takes the box out of his pocket and gives it to her.

"It's not a ring," he says immediately before she even says anything.

She pouts, but throws her arms around him after she opens the box. He shoos her off, but when he walks her home he lets her link their arms together.

When they get to her door, Sebastian turns to her, trying to find something to say, but she beats him to it.

"Thanks for the book too by the way," she says, still holding the flowers, looking up at him through long lashes.

She tugs Sebastian down by his tie a little, stands on her toes and kisses him briefly on the cheek before prancing through her door, tripping slightly and knocking into a coat-rack.

The door swings shut, and Sebastian is left on her doorstep with a slight blush on his cheeks and a cloud of perfume.


End file.
